Improving Decision Support with Anticipatory Life Cycle

Assessment

Alex Cano, Lise Lauren, Valentina Prado PhD, Thomas Seager PhD, Ben Wender PhDMS Graduate Student23 September 2015

LCA Accounts for Shifting of Burdens

Material &energy inputs

Emissions to air, water & soil

Raw Materials

Manufacturing

Product use

End of life

Recycling

Per Functional Unit

LCA Should Support Environmental Decisions

A-SiSingle-Si Multi-Si Ribbon-SiCdTe

15.3% 14.9% 13.7% 6.5% 11.7%

30 year operationEcoinvent 3 LCI Jungbluth et al 2012

ReCiPe Midpoint H Data Uncertainty – Pedigree Matrix

F.U: Production 1 MJ Slanted Roof Installation

www.openlca.org

Long Known that Inventory is too Complex for Decision Makers

Midpoint Impact Still too Complex ...Impact Category Unit a-Si CdTe Multi- Si Ribbon-Si Single-Si

Mean Mean Mean Mean MeanAgricultural land m2a 4.9E-4 6.9E-4 1.2E-3 1.0E-3 1.1E-3Climate change kg CO2 eq 1.6E-2 1.3E-2 1.9E-2 1.7E-2 2.2E-2

Fossil dep kg oil eq 4.1E-3 3.3E-3 5.0E-3 4.4E-3 5.8E-3

Freshwater ecotox kg 1,4-DB eq 7.3E-6 7.7E-6 9.4E-6 9.6E-6 9.5E-6

Freshwater eutroph kg P eq 1.7E-5 2.0E-5 1.8E-5 1.7E-5 1.9E-5

Human toxicity kg 1,4-DB eq 8.5E-3 1.1E-2 1.1E-2 1.1E-2 1.1E-2

Marine ecotox kg 1,4-DB eq 9.1E-5 1.1E-4 1.5E-4 1.6E-4 1.5E-4

Marine eutroph kg N eq 5.6E-6 6.2E-6 8.8E-6 8.8E-6 9.8E-6Natural land trans m2 2.4E-6 1.9E-6 2.8E-6 2.5E-6 3.0E-6

Ozone Dep kg CFC-11 eq 9.5E-10 9.6E-10 3.4E-9 3.36E-9 3.28E-9

Terrestrial ecotoxicity kg 1,4-DB eq 2.4E-6 3.0E-6 3.5E-5 3.9E-5 3.4E-5

Urban land occup m2a 1.9E-4 1.8E-4 2.1E-4 1.9E-4 2.3E-4Water Dep m3 8.9E-2 5.9E-2 3.1E-1 2.3E-1 2.9E-1

0

25

50

75

100

a-Si CdTe multi-Si ribbon-Si single-Si

Typical Software Outputs Present Tradeoffs but No Uncertainty

0.0E+005.0E-061.0E-051.5E-052.0E-052.5E-053.0E-053.5E-054.0E-054.5E-055.0E-05

a-Si CdTe multi-Si ribbon-Si single-Si

External Normalization Emphasizes Global Behavior Not the Decision Maker

Normalized Values - ReCiPe Europe

Tradeoff significance

Impact Decision

Discrete Stochastic

Stochastic Multi-Attribute Analysis (SMAA) Addresses these Challenges

SMAA-Tool Uses Same Data Plus Uncertainty

Impact Category Unit

a-Si CdTe Multi- Si Ribbon-Si Single-Si

Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Agricultural land m2a 4.9E-4 1.9E-4 6.9E-4 2.0E-4 1.2E-3 3.6E-4 1.0E-3 3.0E-4 1.1E-3 3.5E-4

Climate change kg CO2 eq 1.6E-2 4.1E-3 1.3E-2 2.5E-3 1.9E-2 4.0E-3 1.7E-2 3.6E-3 2.2E-2 4.8E-3

Fossil dep kg oil eq 4.1E-3 1.1E-3 3.3E-3 6.8E-4 5.0E-3 1.1E-3 4.4E-3 9.1E-4 5.8E-3 1.3E-3

Freshwater eutroph kg P eq 1.7E-5 1.0E-5 2.0E-5 2.1E-5 1.8E-5 1.0E-5 1.7E-5 1.1E-5 1.9E-5 1.2E-5

Marine ecotox kg 1,4-DB eq 9.1E-5 4.0E-5 1.1E-4 5.8E-5 1.5E-4 7.5E-5 1.6E-4 7.3E-5 1.5E-4 6.9E-5

Marine eutroph kg N eq 5.6E-6 1.5E-6 6.2E-6 1.6E-6 8.8E-6 2.1E-6 8.8E-6 2.1E-6 9.8E-6 2.3E-6

Metal Dep kg Fe eq 9.0E-3 2.5E-3 8.5E-3 2.1E-3 7.1E-3 1.9E-3 6.9E-3 1.9E-3 7.2E-3 2.0E-3

Ozone Dep kg CFC-11 eq 9.5E-10 3.2E-10 9.6E-10 2.9E-10 3.4E-9 9.28E-

10 3.36E-9 8.85E-10 3.28E-9 8.40E-

10

Water Dep m3 8.9E-2 2.6E-2 5.9E-2 1.4E-2 3.1E-1 8.8E-2 2.3E-1 5.7E-2 2.9E-1 7.7E-2

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.80

10

20

30

5

15

25

Compare1

Prob

abili

ty D

ensi

ty

Compare1a-Si CdTe multi-Si ribbon-Si single-Si

Water depletion (m3)Prob

abili

ty D

ensit

y

CdTe

A-Si

Ribbon-SiSingle-SiMulti-Si

0 100u20u 40u 60u 80u 120u 140u0

10K

20K

30K

40K

50K

60K

Compare1

Prob

abili

ty D

ensi

ty

Compare1a-Si CdTe multi-Si ribbon-Si single-Si

CdTeA-SiRibbon-SiSingle-Si

Multi-Si

0 10u 20u2u 4u 6u 8u 12u 14u 16u 18u 22u0

100K

200K

300K

50K

150K

250K

Compare1

Prob

abili

ty D

ensi

ty

Compare1a-Si CdTe multi-Si ribbon-Si single-Si

Marine Eutrophication kg N eq

A-SiCdTe

Multi-SiRibbon-Si

Single-Si

Impact Category Avg areaEq. 9

Top 2

1 Water depletion 0.26 CdTe / A-Si 2 Terrestrial ecotoxicity 0.37 A-Si / CdTe3 Marine eutrophication 0.40 A-Si / CdTe4 Ozone depletion 0.48 A-Si / CdTe

5 Agricultural land occupation 0.51 A-Si / CdTe

6 Photochemical oxidant 0.54 CdTe / A-Si7 Climate change 0.56 CdTe / A-Si8 Fossil depletion 0.57 CdTe / A-Si

9 Particulate matter formation 0.67 CdTe / A-Si

10 Terrestrial acidification 0.73 CdTe / A-Si11 Marine ecotoxicity 0.75 A-Si / CdTe

12 Metal depletion 0.78 Ribbon-Si / Single-Si

13 Freshwater ecotoxicity 0.79 A-Si / CdTe14 Urban land occupation 0.83 CdTe / A-Si15 Human toxicity 0.84 A-Si / CdTe

16 Natural land transformation 0.84 CdTe / A-Si

17 Ionising radiation 0.85 CdTe / A-Si18 Freshwater eutrophication 0.88 A-Si / Ribbon-Si

Prob

abili

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ensit

yPr

obab

ility

Den

sity

Prado-Lopez et al 2014 JIE

Tradeoff significance

Freshwater Eutrophication kg P eq

Showing Impacts with Uncertainty Helps Assess Significance

Aggregating Midpoints into Single Environmental Indicator Simplifies Decision

CdTe60% first

A-Si40% first

Single - Si64% Last

Overall Environmental Preference

Best

SMAA-LCARanking Preference

• Questions/Comments• Funding– United States Army Corps of Engineers – Research and Coordination Network – Earth Shift Global

Thank you